There is substantial pressure to reduce costs and conserve resources in the manufacture of products. This is particularly true of the resource devoted to packaging and shipping of products such as detergent cartons. Often such products will be shipped in a shipping case made of corrugated fiberboard.
Brown et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,992,630 discloses a packaged product which includes a plurality of cartons, a corrugated board of paperboard carrier wall disposed along a portion of the periphery, and shrink wrapping. The Brown et al. invention does not require a full shipping case, but utilizes corrugated board or paperboard as the carrier wall for the multipack.
Fales, U.S. Pat. No. 4,306,653 discloses a packaging container for protection of fragile articles during shipping and storage which includes an outer carton and plurality of inner packing support panels attached to the contained article by a heat shrinkable film.
Harris, U.S. Pat. No. 4,941,572 discloses a package for shipping and storing articles, such as cut flower arrangements. A plastic film vented shell is disposed about the flowers and connected to a container in shrink wrap relation. The package includes a U-shaped insert.
Anderson, U.S. Pat. No. 3,804,235 discloses a package comprising an article having heat shrinkable material wrapped therearound. A thickening ridge defines a reinforcement which prevents tearing. A plurality of articles may be disposed in juxtaposed position within the package.
Wakeman, U.S. Pat. No. 4,738,371 discloses a reusable, rollable wrap for securing items stacked on a rectangular pallet. The wrap includes a flexible sheet and a plurality of parallel stiff elongate corner support members which are secured to the sheet at spaced apart intervals.
Goettsch et al., U.S. Pat. No. 2,762,550 discloses a reinforcement for a container. In FIG. 2, a blank is shown having a pair of interlocking, complementary reinforcing members formed therefrom.
Other patents involving shrink wrap packaging or other related forms of packaging include Richardson, U.S. Pat. No. 3,918,584, Shelton, U.S. Pat. No. 4,177,895, Clarkson, U.S. Pat. No. 4,730,730, Lems, U.S. Pat. No. 4,828,110, Roth, U.S. Pat. No. 4,119,202, Macomber, U.S. Pat. No. 3,571,815, Heays, U.S. Pat. No. 4,030,600, Lawson et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,995,736, Allen, U.S. Pat. No. 5,551,563, Moen, U.S. Pat. No. 5,950,915, MurGimeno, U.S. Pat. No. 5,452,848.
There is still a need for an effective way to ship products utilizing minimal resource.
The invention is directed to the discovery of a new way of shipping cartons and other packages so as to minimize the cost and the resource used. The invention is directed in the first embodiment to a liner, particularly for use in combination with shrink wrap packaging, which includes corners for compressive strength and yet panels having deceased height intermediate such corners. The decreased height panels result in conversation of the resource used to make the liner. In a preferred embodiment, the liners are nestable so that they fit closely one on top of each other in the manufacturing process, therefore conserving space. Moreover, nestability of the liner blanks helps promote conservation of resource particularly when the liner blanks are cut from the same fiberboard blank.
For a more complete understanding of the above and other features and advantages of the invention, reference should be made to the following description of the preferred embodiments.